Books & ideas

Big Tech's Rise to Political Power

Jules Naudet — 2022-06-09T07:30:00Z

Technological change has outstripped existing law, creating a governance vacuum. The pressing need towards a renewal of regulations will likely lead to closed autonomous systems and further increase the fragmentation of the world order.

Reinventing Capitalism

Torben Iversen — 2020-06-15T07:00:00Z

Should we blame capitalism for the challenges rich democracies have been facing over the past thirty years—from growing inequality to the rise of populism? According to Torben Iversen, the opposite is true: it was democracy that transformed capitalism to take full advantage of new technologies.

Tracing Apps to Fight Covid-19

Marine Al Dahdah & Mohammad Javed Alam — 2020-05-18T07:00:00Z

Tracing apps to prevent the spread of Covid-19 have been implemented in various Asian countries, and Europe is also considering their use. But is the data privacy risk worth taking? This essay proposes an overview of such technologies and questions their efficiency.

Governing by Technology in China

Émilie Frenkiel — 2020-05-11T07:00:00Z

Chinese society has been thoroughly transformed by digital tools, which private companies have developed for people to shop, chat, entertain themselves. The central and local governments have tried to keep up to date. Jesper Schlæger explains the intricacies of Chinese eGovernment.

The Invisible Museum

Yaël Kreplak — 2020-04-16T07:00:00Z

Though primarily a visual experience, the museum nonetheless depends on a number of invisible tasks. V.A. Lépinay's book uses the Hermitage Museum as a field of investigation and reveals the scientific work done on the collections, their composition and their presentation to the public

Ending the Anthropocene

Claire Sagan — 2019-01-22T07:00:00Z

Predictive models in ecology generally assume that capitalism will be maintained. However, as Claire Sagan argues, adapting to the climate crisis requires that we go beyond the capitalist hegemony and renounce the notion of “Anthropocene”.

Intelligence, Still Artificial

Tristan Fournier — 2018-05-10T07:00:00Z

At a time when artificial intelligence is the focus of growing public attention, the philosopher Catherine Malabou questions the increasingly porous boundaries between the human brain and the synthetic brain. In doing so she traces the development of the concept of intelligence.

Citizen Hacker

Clément Mabi — 2017-07-06T07:00:00Z

To increase citizen participation and political responsiveness, today new civic tech claims to be ‘hacking' democracy. Going beyond their immediate appeal, can these technologies deeply transform politics? What project do they propose?

The Book: Its Past, Its Future

Ivan Jablonka — 2013-10-14T09:15:31Z

Roger Chartier, a professor at the Collège de France, examines the upheavals of the digital age which now confront us with an unprecedented question about the future of the written text: in its electronic form, should a text be fixed and immutable like a printed book, or can it open up to the potentialities of anonymity and unbounded multiplicity? What is certain is that the multiplication of editorial media, of periodicals and screens is diversifying the reading and writing practices of a society which, contrary to what is often claimed, is reading more and more.

Translation and the Meaning of Linguistic Diversity

Thomas Grillot — 2012-03-01T11:31:53Z

A translator of twentieth-century writers into English, David Bellos has recently devoted an entire volume to his trade, Is That A Fish in Your Ear? Where does linguistic diversity come from? Can we trust automatic translating machines? Is English a hegemonic language? David Bellos offers insights afforded by his familiarity with “the extraordinarily subtle business of English as an international language.”